Page 129 of The Rancher Who Swore Off Love
“I know.”
“He’s sittin’ in a cell right now, and he’s got a busted face and a busted rib, and he’salone, and I—” Her voice broke. “He did a terrible thing. I know that. But he did it because Ace had a knife to his throat the same way he had one to mine, and Jonah’s twenty-five years old and he’s been scared since he was fourteen and nobody ever—”
She pressed her face against Logan’s shoulder. Her body shook with the kind of crying that didn’t make noise, just pushed through in waves, and Logan held on and let her shake because some things needed to come out whole.
“We’ll figure it out.”
“How?”
“I don’t know yet. But we’ll figure it out.”
A floorboard creaked in the hallway. Pa stood in the doorway with his arms crossed, his white hair sticking up, and that look on his face—the one that meant he’d been listening, and formed an opinion that had calcified into something roughly the consistency of granite.
“The boy made mistakes.”
Grace lifted her head.
“Bad ones. But he also took a beatin’ tryin’ to protect this ranch.” Pa shifted his weight onto his good hip. “Your mother—my Miriam—would’ve said a man who fights for family after fallin’ that far has earned a second chance.”
“Pa, the sheriff’s got him locked up. It ain’t that simple.”
“Then we make it simple. We go to Briggs. All of us. Every Foster in this house stands in that office and tells the sheriff that Jonah Linton acted under threat to his life and his sister’s life, and that this family won’t press charges.”
“Pa, that ain’t how it—”
“Don’t you tell me how it works, boy.”
“You can’t just…” Logan sighed. “Criminal charges aren’t the same as—”
“Mason!” Pa hollered down the stairs. “Thomas!”
Boots. Two sets, one heavy and one deliberately casual, began coming up the stairs. Thomas never rushed. Even in emergencies, the man ambled through crises like he had a reservation somewhere.
“What’s goin’ on?” Mason leaned in the doorframe.
“We’re goin’ to town.” Pa looked at Logan. “All of us.”
“For Jonah?” Mason grinned. “About time.”
Thomas shrugged. “I mean, who else is gonna do the chores I don’t want to do?”
“Thomas.” Logan pinched the bridge of his nose.
“What? I’magreeing. Enthusiastically.”
***
Sheriff Briggs looked at all of them—Logan, Grace with Miriam, Pa with his bad hip, and Mason bouncing on his heels. Thomas leaned against the wall as if the whole thing bored him—and rubbed his forehead the way a man rubbed his forehead when the day had officially exceeded his patience.
Logan did that several times a day thanks to his brothers.
“Let me get this straight. You want me to release the man who helped a gang of criminals dig up your ranch?”
“He acted under duress,” Logan said. “Pike threatened his life and his sister’s. He’s a victim, same as the rest of us.”
“He admitted to theft, conspiracy—”
“And then he tackled the man who had a knife trained on my wife.” Logan set his jaw. “Without Jonah, Grace’d be dead. So would I, probably.”
